CBO Estimates Late-Term Abortions Save Medicaid Dollars

A recent Congressional Budget Office report found that the 11,000 annual late-term abortions in America save dollars for the federal Medicaid program.

A Congressional Budget Office (CBO) “cost estimate” of a proposed bill that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy found that preborn babies who have reached that gestational age are presently aborted at a rate of about 11,000 per year — for an overall savings to the federal Medicaid healthcare system. In its estimation of the federal cost to implement the House-passed Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (H.R. 1797), the CBO explained that based on data from the federal Centers for Disease Control, every year “about 11,000 abortions take place 20 weeks or more after fertilization.”

CSNews.com crunched the CBO numbers and found that in “a 365-day year, 11,000 late-term abortions works out to a little more than 30 per day — counting weekends and holidays.... If it were assumed that those performing late-term abortions only worked 40 hours a week — or 2,080 hours in a 52-week year (without vacations) — that would mean that an average of about 5.3 unborn babies who have made it to at least the 20th week of pregnancy are aborted each work hour in the United States,” or, added the conservative news site, “an average of about 212 per week.”

While the CBO report estimates that “only a relatively small number of abortions would be prohibited” with the passage of the H.R. 1797, CSNews noted that in reality, at 11,000 late-term abortions each year, “American abortionists terminate enough late-term babies in just twelve months to populate Congress [with 435 members] more than 20 times over.”

As for cost, the CBO predicted that most of the women who would have had the late-term abortions banned under H.R. 1797, would opt for earlier procedures, which would cost the federal Medicaid program additional money. “For example,” the report estimated, “if 90 percent of women who would have sought an abortion 20 weeks or more after fertilization instead were to seek earlier abortions, federal spending would rise about $75 million over 10 years."

The JBS Weekly Member Update offers activism tips, new educational tools, upcoming events, and JBS perspective. Every Monday this e-newsletter will keep you informed on current action projects and offer insight into news events you won't hear from the mainstream media.

Receive the latest updates from The John Birch Society. Learn about our national grassroots movement with 50 years of successes.